


bloody and raw, but i swear it is sweet

by nosecoffee



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Crying During Sex, Cuddling, Emotional Ethan, Emotions, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pillow Talk, Post 2x01, Smut, They're Both Versatile AF, fight me, talks of past relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-08 09:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14102520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: lay my heart down with the rest at her feet*"I've done some terrible things.""As have I. But I believe if we are regretful we are also forgiven.""So am I forgiven?" He asks, and Vanessa presses a gentle hand to the centre of his chest. He goes willingly onto his back."Yes, and so much more than that, too."





	bloody and raw, but i swear it is sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Angel of Small Death & the Codeine Scene" by Hozier
> 
> I actually don't know what to say. I have a lot of feelings about this show. I'm only about halfway through season 2, but I'm well aware of how this show ends, so understand I'm just about as distraught as anyone else. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

She thinks she may still be shaking. It was bad enough, that vision in the park, her knees in the snow as though she were bowing down to pray, seeing only pain and suffering, but she's still recovering from the things that tried to kill her.

She knows what they are, what language they spoke, and what language she spoke in return, but it hurts to remember.

It hurts to feel at all.

Vanessa goes to close the door and finds Ethan in the hallway. When had he come to know these halls as well as she? How could he be so confident in knowing which room was which? Perhaps it was while she was playing chess for her soul back when she thought she still might be able to save Mina. Perhaps it was when she wasn't looking. Or perhaps he's always known, and she just hasn't been paying attention.

Ethan holds her gaze for too long. If he knew any better, he'd look away, look down, look up, continue into the bathroom, for she knows that's where he means to go.

Apparently, Ethan Chandler doesn't know any better.

He takes a small step towards her. Vanessa wonders if the look in her eyes is beckoning him. She wonders if she even wants him there. She can't find it in her to care. She's really been through enough. She could do with a little company, even if she told him, quite firmly, that she could deal with it by herself.

"You goin' to bed?" Ethan asks in his gruff American accent. There are some things she can't remember from her time possessed, but she can remember how kind he was to her, can remember the pleading lilt to his voice, the way he had screamed her name at the end of it all, begging her to come back to herself so he wouldn't have to put a bullet through her heart.

"I meant to, yes." Vanessa replies, and her hand curls around the side of the door. Ethan's eyes flick to it, momentarily, and then are back, steadily holding her stare, locking their eyes so she cannot even think to look away. "And you? Are you not leaving for the night?"

"Stayin' here, for the time being." Ethan says. "Sir Malcom gave me a room for as long as I like."

"And how long will that be?" Vanessa cannot help but ask. She regrets the needy tone in her voice immediately. Is she really so foolish?

Ethan doesn't raise an eyebrow. He doesn't move away. "As long as it takes for you to be safe." He tells her, lowering his voice. Vanessa knows why. It's late. What if someone heard them?

But she doesn't want to be alone, especially not after that disastrous carriage ride. The carriage ride where he told her he was leaving. And now here he is, standing in what is practically his underthings, telling her he will stay for as long as it takes for her to stop being plagued by something that will plague her until death. Surely Ethan knows this, she reasons. Surely Ethan understands that this will not end until she's dead.

"Vanessa?" Ethan says, and she looks down, sharply, when she feels his hand on hers.

She stares at their hands on the door, his covering hers like he might just be able to protect her by committing such a simple act. Vanessa never thought he could love her.

She wonders which was the moment when she started loving him.

When she looks up it's only to find he has drifted closer than before, practically against her. Her breath ghosts off his neck, his flyaway hairs lit up by the candlelight in the hallway. This isn't proper. She doesn't care.

Vanessa lifts a hand, and it curves against his jaw. Ethan lets the movement happen, angling his face down so it's almost parallel to hers.

"What do you _want_ , Vanessa?" He asks, as if she may have an answer for him. Surely he knows, by now, that she is far more lost than he could ever comprehend.

Vanessa cannot find a response. Instead, she leans upwards, just enough to press their foreheads together and graze her lips over his. Ethan exhales shakily. It's clear he has no idea what to do next.

"Will you stay with me?" Vanessa whispers.

She sees the way his eyes shine, the kindness, the sadness, the loss. She feels the way he presses her waist with both of his hands and kisses her with an open mouth, almost gasping for breath already, as if the act of kissing her itself is killing him. Vanessa can do nothing but press into him, her arms curling around his neck.

Ethan kisses like he's starving and she's the first morsel of food he's seen in far too long. Vanessa wonders if he knows she's spoilt, poisoned, rotten. She wonders if he'll eat, anyway.

She stumbles back, slightly, and he follows. There's nothing rough, nothing rushed about this. It isn't like with Dorian, or with that man in the alley, or with that Captain that Mina meant to marry all those years ago. They were all take. Ethan - well, did she expect anything less? - Ethan is all give.

The door swings shut behind him, his foot the culprit, and he lifts her, by the bottom of her thighs to rest against his hips. Vanessa cannot help but muse at how gentle he's being. No one has been gentle with her in years. No one has had the need to, for years.

Ethan takes a seat on the bed, releasing her, carefully, so she's seated on his lap, her nightdress rucked up her legs. There's a soft thumping noise as Ethan kicks off his shoes. Vanessa kisses him softly, chastely, pulling away to take a look at his face. She runs her fingers up and down his cheek, across his lips, over his eyelids, over the cut on his forehead where glass from the carriage window slashed at him. "How could you give so much to someone like me?" Vanessa muses, aloud, still not quite sure this isn't a dream that will go quite sour in a matter of seconds.

"I could ask you the same." He murmurs in return, and huffs out a laugh. Vanessa goes ahead and kisses him again, deeper, her hands pressing, softly, to his neck, the lack of cravat around his throat baring more than she's ever seen of him. He's always been so well put together.

Ethan's hands press to her lower back, urging her to move against him. She does want to. God, does she want to.

But she fears that whatever happened with Dorian may happen with Ethan, and that's the last thing she wants. She knows how he would blame himself. She cannot let him.

"Because you are good." Vanessa tells him, between kisses down his cheek, her hands shakily undoing the buttons of his shirt, pushing his suspenders off his shoulders. "I know you don't think you are, but I see you, clear as day, and I see you are good and kind."

His skin is warm beneath her hands, and his hands ball her nightdress in his fists.

"I don't deserve that." Ethan says, shivering under her touches. Vanessa pulls his shirt away from his shoulder and leans down to kiss. If he were anyone else she knows she would bite. But Ethan is worth more than that. "I've done some terrible things."

"As have I." Vanessa allows, pulling his shirt from where it's tucked into his trousers, and tugging it, fully, from his form. "But I believe if we are regretful we are also forgiven."

Ethan gazes up at her - when had she gotten so high above him? - with his dark brown eyes, so full of wonderment. "So am I forgiven?" He asks, and Vanessa presses a gentle hand to the centre of his chest. He goes willingly onto his back.

Vanessa leans down catching his lips in another rousing kiss, her fingers combing through his hair. "Yes," she whispers, against his lips, as if she couldn't bare pulling all the way away. "And so much more than that too."

It's not really her place to say, she knows, but it's what he needs, so desperately, to hear. Ethan makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, tilting her head to the side with a gentle finger, and kissing down the hollow of her throat. He is so careful with her. Vanessa almost wants to beg him to be rough, to ruin her the way he's sure to want to. She doesn't, though. She just lets her hands travel down his body, undoing the fastenings at the front of his trousers, wanting the warm slide of his body against hers.

If anything, she wants Ethan right there, between her legs, making her feel safe and wanted and at peace for the first time in who knows how long.

(The truth is, Vanessa wants every movement, every second, to last forever. She never wants him to leave, she wants to feel this feeling, this feeling that must be love, forever. She wants Ethan to be in her arms, loving her, for the rest of eternity.)

Ethan takes her by the hip, gently, so gently, and turns them until they're both on their sides, no one dominant person in this instant, just common ground. Vanessa helps him shuck his trousers to the floor, sliding easily over his bare feet, and helps him pull her nightdress off, fully.

She's never been fully naked during sex, before; this is new to her. She's never bared this much of her skin to any man, never this much of her soul. She hopes Ethan is kind.

His kisses have not grown any meaner, he still kisses like he's starving but knows if he eats too fast he'll regret it. For all she expected of him, she never suspected Ethan would be so attentive.

Ethan's looking into her eyes when he enters her, so brown, so open, so loving, because of course that's how he feels. That's how she feels, after all, and why, after everything, would she have him if she did not love him? Vanessa grips him by the shoulders, biting her lips to stop any sound that might try to escape. Ethan doesn't grip too hard at her thigh as he continues in, until their hips are flush to each other, until Vanessa isn't quite sure if she'll ever see anything other than his eyes ever again.

Vanessa wonders if every woman he's ever had is haunted by his eyes, or if she's just lucky.

"Ethan, please." Vanessa whispers, their noses brushing.

He frowns in a way that is both pained and loving. "Are you-?"

"Please." She repeats, and pulls him by his shoulder to settle on top of her. Ethan looks a bit shocked for a second. Then, he reaches over her, pillowing her head on his arm, and begins to move. Vanessa's eyes shut, and she meets Ethan's thrusts with thrusts of her own, her hands running rampant over his skin.

As it turns out, he makes love the same way he fires a gun; carefully and practiced. In the same way, she's never seen him so wild, so unchecked, so everything at once instead of one at a time. Vanessa wants to see him fall apart.

Ethan buries his face in her neck, and Vanessa can do nothing but sigh and stroke his hair. Where had he been her whole life? Maybe if she had known him before all of this she would not be so broken as she is now. Vanessa barely bites back a moan when Ethan's free hand goes wandering between her legs and finds something rather nice. Vanessa is no fool, she's well aware that he can't possibly see her as anything but a warm, willing body, but that doesn't mean she won't indulge him the same way she indulges herself.

He is not just a warm, willing body, to her. He's so much more than that. He's Ethan.

"Look at me?" It's a plea, not a demand. He'll understand if she says no. Vanessa can't stand to say no to him.

He looks half in love, half in mourning. This is what makes her roll the both of them over and settle on top of him. She doesn't have to ask why he looks like he could burst into tears at any second. She knows.  
Vanessa knows all too well.

Ethan sits up to meet her, and she gathers his face in her hands, kissing him with all she's worth, rolling her hips to try and make him understand. "I know," she whispers against his lips, nearly losing her breath at the way he thrusts into her. "I know, I'm sorry, I know."

His tears are salt on her sour tongue. Vanessa kisses them off his cheeks, feeling a burning in her abdomen, feeling it rising. Surely he's getting close, surely he's just as desperate as she for the finale, surely he understands.

Ethan makes a noise that sounds like a sob, and Vanessa finds she can do nothing but continue. "I'm sorry, Ethan, I'm sorry."

"Don't leave." He whispers, fingers tightening around her hips. Her own fingers scrabble at the stubble on his jaw.

"I won't." Vanessa tells him, and the burning grows hotter. "I'll stay if you stay, too."

"Promise me." His pace quickens. It takes everything in her not to just give way, already, throw caution to the wind, and let go.

"I promise." She says, lips right up against his cheek. "I'm not going anywhere."

And it happens just like that. Vanessa runs a hand over his hair, again, down his arm, twinning their fingers together, and when he pulls back to look at her through dark brown eyes, he sees just how much she means it. Vanessa lets go.

She shudders as it hits her, possibly the best of her life, and arches down against his shoulder, her knees aching. Ethan doesn't stop, though she doesn't expect him too, and it isn't long after that that he exhales sharply and falls back against the bed.

Vanessa climbs off of him, and burrows down underneath the covers. Ethan is slow to follow, but he gets there, his body warm, his heart still racing as Vanessa presses her ear to his chest. This is new, too. No one's ever stayed in her arms afterwards. She's never wanted them to.

Ethan is everything she wishes she'd had the first time round. She wishes she'd known him, growing up, wishes she'd had his influence on her from the start, had his judgement to stop her from the horrible things she did. For a moment, she imagines another world where she had known him since childhood, and it only seemed inevitable for them to be married, in the garden of her house, up on the cliff. That perhaps the way he's holding her now is the way he holds her in their wedding bed, once they've finished consummating their marriage. He is her first and she is his, and soon they'll have children of their own, maybe growing up beside Mina and Peter's children.

The world is gone as quickly as it came, and she's left with half-formed tears in her eyes and Ethan Chandler, post orgasm, in her bed.

"I can only speak for myself, but I think there's been enough broken hearts around here, lately." Vanessa whispers to him, his skin so warm beneath her. He's so alive in her arms.

"Oh?" Ethan inquires, stroking a finger down the centre of her back. He no longer sounds upset. His heart rate is slowing down.

"Dorian. Mina. Brona." She gulps. He stills. "I've had enough of heartbreak. I just need something permanent."

"And am I your something permanent?" Ethan asks her, voice a little strained.

She draws a circle on his chest with her index finger, around and around, vaguely hypnotic. "If you'd like to be."

"You're shocking at pillow talk, Miss Ives." He says, laughing humourlessly.

"Call me Vanessa, Mr Chandler." She sighs.

"Call me Ethan, Vanessa." Ethan counters, and she laughs, for a second.

The words appear on the tip of her tongue without her consent. It would be a wretched thing to ask, she knows, but it doesn't make her any less curious. Vanessa allows herself to ask, "Do you miss her terribly?"

"Brona?" Ethan sounds like he's stepping on broken glass just by saying her name. Like the pain of it all just comes rushing back no matter how tiny the reminder.

"Yes." She replies, and bites her lip. "I know you loved her."

"I do miss her." He allows, and she feels him swallow the tears back. Ethan is so unlike any man she's ever met. She doesn't think she'll ever meet another man like him, and she never wishes to. If there were anyone else like Ethan she wouldn't know what to do with herself. "I forgot that when you love someone you give them pieces of you to hold with them, that when you love them you give them permission to destroy you if they so wish to."

"I don't think she meant to." Vanessa tells him as honestly as possible. She still doesn't quite know what happened. What she does know is that Brona was already dying when Ethan met her. Surely Ethan knew this, and surely he knew the consequences of falling for someone slowly dying in front of his eyes.

"Neither do I," Ethan agrees, and Vanessa looks up at him, he's staring at the ceiling, his brown eyes shining in the candlelight. "But wherever she went, she took a piece of my heart with her."

"Ethan." She whispers, scared that she'll lose him to the sadness in a matter of seconds. She can't let him slip between her fingers like Mina had.

"I'd like to believe there's a heaven just so I can know, for sure, she's somewhere safe." Ethan continues, his voice thick.

"Ethan." Vanessa says, again, gentler this time. He isn't drowning, she realises. He's floating, same as her.

Ethan looks at her, and while he still looks sad he also looks calm. Like he feels safe there, with her. "I wish I knew how I felt before all of this so I could understand just what I've lost." For a man who says he doesn't believe in god, every word out of his mouth sounds like a prayer. Like he's begging for some kind of answer. Vanessa wishes she had one for him. "I wish I was just as naïve as before, just for the comfort of having a full heart again. So I wouldn't know how it felt to lose her."

"Ignorance may be bliss, but perhaps it's better to be experienced." She murmurs, laying her head on her folded hands. Ethan must agree or something, because then his hand is stroking her hair. "Otherwise, how would we get on with life?"

Neither of them say anything for a long time. Vanessa begins to fall asleep, begins to drift, and it's the nicest it's felt in years. Her sleep has been plagued and cursed for years. It seems fitting that Ethan would be the one to undo that.

She feels the hitch of his breath, so she knows he's going to speak before it happens. "Vanessa," she can't help but wonder why he says her name like it's a precious incantation he wants to be careful about casting, "did you love Mina the same way I loved Brona?"

"Once." Vanessa allows, knowing it to be true. Somewhere between the glass eyes in her eagle and the night she snuck out of Mina's bed to ruin everything. "A long time ago. But by the end she wasn't Mina anymore, even I could tell."

"And do you miss her?" She feels his voice through his chest, vibrating in time with the steady drumbeat of his heart.

"With every beat of my heart." Vanessa tells him, because it's true. Because all she wants to do, now, is tell him the truth of everything, have him tell her the truth of his everything so that there can be no secrets between them. Perhaps it would rid her of the desire to be with him, and so ruin this dream, or perhaps...

"Did you really want me to stay?" Ethan asks her, and Vanessa looks up at him, his eyes betraying nothing even as they betray everything.

"How could I want you to _leave_ , Ethan? You are so different from anyone else in my life, so good." Vanessa says, and sits up. The sheet slips down her form. She can't imagine what he thinks of her, now. "I have a feeling that if you gave me the chance I could love with you."

"You do?" To his credit, Ethan doesn't sound that surprised at this proclamation.

"Yes." She says, and Ethan's mouth quirks up in a small smile. He sits up against the head of her bed.

"Should I give you the chance, do you think?" Ethan asks her, and while he smiles Vanessa can see quite clearly something fragile underneath it all. Something that hopes she isn't another lost cause for him to fall in love with. Vanessa doesn't want to be a lost cause, for both their sakes.

She swallows but doesn't look away from him. She is not weak and shy. She is not a fool, she knows she holds perhaps the most precious thing in the world in her hands. "As long as you'll let me give you one too."

Ethan reaches out to her and she takes his hands without thinking, letting him pull her into a new embrace. He kisses the side of her head, and whispers, "It's a deal." Vanessa smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this. If you did, please feel free to tell me more about that in the comments, or just leave me a kudos. You can find me on Tumblr @nose-coffee, and I am so willing to scream about this show with any willing participants. So, you know, if you feel like it, hmu. Again, thanks.


End file.
